BIKE MAINTENANCE LA

Tim Martin is one of those dudes you come across rarely these days, he is a man of his word, when he offers to help you out he actually means it. Saturday was a typical "all I have to do is swap tires and check the valves, should only take an hour or so" kind of day. Well we got to his spot an hour late because of my great city navigation skills, fuck LA, and proceeded to blow the bikes apart. As i was swapping out stiffer rear springs Jordan was wrestling a particularly crusty old tire off the rim, rather than helping I was secretly loving every moment of his sweaty struggle, he has always been the better tire changer and I thought for once I might be the king of tires. When he pinched the tube putting it back together I though for sure today was going to be my day. Well kharma is a bitch, I got my hands on the tire irons as he left to grab some lunch, I had the old tire off in record time and my confidence was high, surely by the time he got back i would have everything buttoned up. Jordan returned from the burrito cart just in time to see me fail with the rushing sound of air deflating my ego. Shit well he pinched a tube too so whatever, pull it apart, patch it, put it back together, leaking again, fuck. Tim kindly gives me a spare tube, surely this will be it, by now Jordan feels sorry for me and offers to help, "I don't need any help", lets just say that Jordan is still the king of changing tires. I will just stick to checking oil and lubing the chains.

By now we have wasted most of Tims day off and I feel like a douche, he insist that its all good and tells us to do whatever else needs to be done. I adjust the valves and start putting the bike back together, at the last minute I decide to put new rear pads in only to find the pin seized and stripped, I proceed to make a mess of the casting with a drill rendering the hole thing useless. luckily Tims roommate Steve has an XR and promised that it would be no big deal to rob it, thanks Steve. We left Tims an hour late for a home cooked taco fiesta that our favorite gal Audria was preparing, we ate like kings and spent our last night in LA with good friends, thanks to everyone that accommodated us and lent a hand.